Part 1: Morning Chaos
The alarm clock screamed. Martinez groaned and buried her face in her pillow. Across the hall, the day had already begun for her little brother.
LEO (O.S.)
(Faintly, singing)
THE DINO-SNOOOORES ARE COMING TO TOWN, TO TOWN!
MARIA (O.S.)
Leo! Pajamas are not for painting!
LEO (O.S.)
But Mom! It's abstract! It's the great broccoli volcano!
Martinez smiled into her pillow. Her brother was a five-year-old natural disaster. He wasn't just naughty—he was a creative genius of chaos. Last week, he'd used her mom's good lipstick to draw a "solar system" on the bathroom mirror. The week before, he'd "fixed" the toaster with Legos. It somehow made better toast.
But he was also scary smart. He could already read. He could watch a cartoon once and repeat the theme song perfectly. He learned things so fast it was almost weird.
DAVID (O.S.)
(Harried)
Has anyone seen my blue tie? The one without the spaghetti sauce?
MARIA (O.S.)
Check the freezer.
DAVID (O.S.)
Why would it be… oh. Leo.
Martinez finally got up. Her room was neat, organized. Books on physics and chemistry were stacked beside her bed. A poster of the periodic table was on one wall, beside a single photo of her with her two best friends. She was smart—top of her class in science and math—but she wasn't the type to brag. She just liked how things worked. How numbers fit. How the world made sense.
She was quiet. Sweet. People said she had a "pure heart," which sometimes just meant she trusted people too easily and got her feelings hurt. She only had two real friends, and that was enough for her.
Part 2: School Daze
Franklin D. Roosevelt Elementary and Middle School was a big, loud brick building. Maria Martinez taught 3rd grade there. This meant her children were under a microscope.
Martinez walked into her first-period physics class. Her best friend, CHLOE, waved her over. Chloe was all bright colors and loud laughs.
CHLOE
You look like you solved the meaning of life and it was boring. Bad sleep?
MARTINEZ
Leo was singing dinosaur opera at 6 AM.
CHLOE
Classic Leo. My mom says he's a "spirited child." I think that's teacher-code for "please save me."
Their other friend, BENJI, slid into the seat next to them. Benji was quiet like Martinez, but where she was calm, he was just shy. He was brilliant with computers.
BENJI
Hey. I finished the code for the robot arm simulation. It's… moderately terrifying. It might try to conquer the classroom.
Their teacher, MR. HARPER, clapped his hands.
MR. HARPER
Alright, future Einstein ! Today, we discuss the physics of swing! Pendulums! The transfer of energy!
He drew a simple pendulum on the board. Martinez's mind, however, didn't see a ball on a string. She saw a person. Arcing through the air between buildings. The math of it—the velocity, the parabolic curve, the force needed to stick a landing…
She blinked, shaking her head. Stop it, she told herself. It's just a story.
Down the hall, in the colorful chaos of Kindergarten, Leo Martinez was having a Different Kind of Day.
MISS APPLEBY (a very patient woman) was trying to get the kids to make handprint turkeys (a month late, but the art supplies had just arrived).
LEO
(Examining the paint)
Miss Appleby, why is this red not the same as fire-truck red? This is more… ladybug-after-it-ate-something-red.
MISS APPLEBY
Just dip your hand, Leo.
LEO
But the viscosity is wrong for optimal fingerprint clarity. See?
He demonstrated, creating a perfect, clear handprint. Then he "accidentally" knocked over the blue paint, creating a fascinating swirl of color.
MISS APPLEBY
Leo…
LEO
It's the ocean meeting the sky! It's beautiful! Look, Tyler! A primordial soup!
At that moment, Maria Martinez peeked in to check on him. She saw the paint disaster, saw Miss Appleby's strained smile, and sighed with a mother's deep, enduring love.
MARIA
My office, after school, Leo.
LEO
(Grins)
Okay, Mom! Can I bring my primordial soup?
Part 3: The Bank & The Mystery
Across town, David Martinez was in his office at First National Bank. It was all quiet clicks of keyboards and hushed phone calls.
CO-WORKER (JEN)
David, the Henderson account is throwing a fit about the wire fee again.
DAVID
(Without looking up)
Tell Mr. Henderson it's like paying for sauerkraut on a hot dog. It's just the cost of doing business.
He was good at his job. Steady. Reliable. But his mind kept drifting back to the dinner conversation. To the look on his daughter's face when she asked about the hero stories.
His phone buzzed. A text from Maria.
MARIA (TEXT)
Leo recreated the Big Bang with glitter and glue. Send help. And a vacuum.
David smiled, but it faded quickly. He pulled up an old, archived news website on his computer. The headline was blurry, from 2014: VIGILANTE OR MENACE? CITY DIVIDED OVER 'SPIDER-MAN'.
He closed the tab quickly, as if someone might see. He didn't know what he believed anymore.
Part 4: The Search Begins
After school, Martinez didn't go straight home. She went to the public library. The big, old one with the stone lions out front.
She sat at a computer and typed something into the search bar. Then she deleted it. Then typed it again.
SPIDER-MAN NEW YORK
The results were… disappointing. A few cheesy articles about "NYC Urban Legends." A listicle: "Top 10 Superhero Hoaxes." A blurry photo that looked more like a trash bag caught in the wind than a man.
There was nothing real. No proof. Just like her parents said.
Frustrated, she wandered into the non-fiction section. Her eyes scanned the spines until they landed on a book: The Physics of Superheroes. She pulled it out, a smirk on her face. This was silly.
Part 5: Nighttime Questions
That night, after Leo had been put to bed (his "primordial soup" painting now hanging proudly on the fridge), Martinez sat at the kitchen table with the book.
David was reading the paper. Maria was grading spelling tests.
MARIA
"Cat" is not spelled K-A-T-T-E, Leo. But points for creativity.
Martinez wasn't really listening. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. She'd been thinking about it all day—the way her parents had gotten so quiet last night when she asked about the stories. The shadow she thought she saw.
She opened a new browser window. She glanced at her parents. Her dad was focused on his tablet. Her mom was circling a misspelled word with a sigh.
Taking a quiet breath, Martinez typed into the search bar: spider-man new york real?
She hit enter.
The results were… weird. A lot of movie news. Articles about comic books. A few old, blurry photos from what looked like news websites from ten years ago. The headlines were dramatic: "MENACE OR HERO?" and "WEB-SLINGER STRIKES AGAIN?"
One photo showed a blurry, dark shape on a rooftop. It could have been anything—a flag, a piece of construction equipment, a weird shadow.
Another link led to a blog called "NYC Urban Legends." It talked about Spider-Man like he was Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster—a fun story, but not real.
She clicked on a video titled "Spider-Man Saves Bus - Original Footage!" The video was shaky, filmed on an old phone. It showed a city bus swerving, and for a second, a red and blue blur seemed to zip past the windshield. Then the video cut off. The comments were all arguing: "FAKE!" "I was there, it was real!" "CGI obviously."
Martinez leaned closer to the screen, squinting. It was impossible to tell.
"Find anything interesting?"
She jumped, quickly slamming her laptop shut. David was looking at her over his tablet, his expression neutral.
"Just… a history project," she mumbled, her face feeling warm. "About city legends."
David nodded slowly. "Ah. Those old stories again." He put his tablet down. "You know, the internet is full of made-up things. People can make videos look like anything these days. It doesn't mean it happened."
"I know," she said. But she didn't open her laptop again.
Later in her room, she opened it once more. She stared at the search results, at the arguing comments, at the single blurry photo. There was no proof. Just fragments. Stories fighting with other stories.
Her dad was probably right. It was all just noise. Old gossip that had turned into a legend.
She closed the laptop and looked out her window at the dark city. But a stubborn little thought remained, poking at her mind.
If it was all just a made-up story… why did her parents look so sad when they talked about it?